High-dose oral glutamine supplementation reduces elevated glutamate levels in cerebrospinal fluid in patients with mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes syndrome.

Background And Purpose: Mitochondrial encephalomyopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes (MELAS) syndrome is a genetically heterogeneous disorder caused by mitochondrial DNA mutations. There are no disease-modifying therapies, and treatment remains mainly supportive. It has been shown previously that patients with MELAS syndrome have significantly increased cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) glutamate and significantly decreased CSF glutamine levels compared to controls.

Symptomatic Atherosclerotic Disease and Decreased Risk of Cancer-Specific Mortality: A Prospective, Population-Based Study (NEDICES).

The few studies that have assessed the association between symptomatic atherosclerotic disease and risk of cancer have had conflicting results. In addition, these studies ascertained participants either from treatment settings (ie, service-based studies) or by using a records linkage system (ie, medical records of patients evaluated at clinics or hospitals) and, therefore, were prone to selection bias. Our purpose was to estimate the risk of cancer mortality in a large population-based sample of elderly people, comparing participants with symptomatic atherosclerotic disease (atherosclerotic stroke and coronary disease) to their counterparts without symptomatic atherosclerotic disease (ie, controls) in the same population.